The South awoke on Wednesday to a two-part Arctic mess. First came a thin blanket of snow and ice, and then came the below-zero wind chills. Dangerous, icy roads are reported from Texas and Louisana east to Georgia and North Carolina. (Jan. 17)

A man walks through steam venting from a building in the cold weather in Atlanta, Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2018. The South awoke on Wednesday to a two-part Arctic mess. First came a thin blanket of snow and ice, and then came the below-zero wind chills and record-breaking low temperatures in New Orleans and other cities. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Emergency personnel work at the scene of a partially submerged car in a canal in Metairie, La., Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2018. Authorities said an 8-month-old baby in the car was killed. Investigators believe the driver lost control on an icy overpass and plunged into the canal. (Matthew Hinton/The Advocate via AP)

A snow covered downtown is seen, Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2018, in Atlanta. The South awoke on Wednesday to a two-part Arctic mess. First came a thin blanket of snow and ice, and then came the below-zero wind chills and record-breaking low temperatures in New Orleans and other cities. (AP Photo/Janelle Cogan)

A couple walks through a snow covered Piedmont Park as the sun rises in Atlanta, Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2018. The South awoke on Wednesday to a two-part Arctic mess. First came a thin blanket of snow and ice, and then came the below-zero wind chills and record-breaking low temperatures in New Orleans and other cities. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

A person walks through a snow covered Piedmont Park as the sun rises in Atlanta, Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2018. The South awoke on Wednesday to a two-part Arctic mess. First came a thin blanket of snow and ice, and then came the below-zero wind chills and record-breaking low temperatures in New Orleans and other cities. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

A person walks through a snow covered Piedmont Park as the midtown skyline stands in the background Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2018. The South awoke on Wednesday to a two-part Arctic mess. First came a thin blanket of snow and ice, and then came the below-zero wind chills and record-breaking low temperatures in New Orleans and other cities. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

A police officer walks from the scene of an overturned Jeep after an accident on a snow covered road in Richmond, Va., Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2018. A winter storm is making it's way through Virginia. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)

A man sleds down a road at Radnor Lake State Park, Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2018, in Nashville, Tenn. A winter storm brought snow and cold temperatures to the area, causing the closing of schools and businesses. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)

People take a walk in the snow at Radnor Lake State Park, Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2018, in Nashville, Tenn. A winter storm brought snow and cold temperatures to the area, causing the closing of schools and businesses. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)

Jeremy Roberts sits on a cot at a warming shelter opened by the Harris County Precinct One Constables Office and the American Red Cross at Pleasant Grove Missionary Baptist Church as freezing weather moves through the region Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2018, in Houston. (Michael Ciaglo/Houston Chronicle via AP)

Emergency personnel remove patients for transport to area hospitals at the scene of a multi-vehicle wreck on Interstate 65 near Bonnieville, Ky., Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2018. The wreck shut down the southbound lanes for several hours. Several people were transported from the scene to at least two different hospitals. (Neal Cardin/The News-Enterprise via AP)

Allie Eidson, left, and Connor Howe, right, walk in the street of their snowbound neighborhood in Raleigh, N.C., Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2018. The couple said they enjoyed the snow day at home by cooking and tossing snowballs in between their work. Howe, who does application engineering for a home smart metering company, spent the day working at home while Eidson, a junior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, studied. (AP Photo/Emery P. Dalesio)

Dazaria Russell, 9, opens her mouth to catch the falling snowflakes as she makes a snow angel Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2018, in Winston-Salem, N.C. The Triad's first snow fall of the year resulted in approximately 5 to 6 inches. (Allison Lee Isley/The Winston-Salem Journal via AP)

In this Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2018, photo, Cape May Salt Oyster Company owner Brian Harman takes pictures of large chunks of ice from the Delaware Bay that came to rest atop a couple of oyster racks at an aqua-farm in Pierces Point, N.J., Middle Township. (Dale Gerhard/The Press of Atlantic City via AP)

The South awoke on Wednesday to a two-part Arctic mess. First came a thin blanket of snow and ice, and then came the below-zero wind chills. Dangerous, icy roads are reported from Texas and Louisana east to Georgia and North Carolina. (Jan. 17)

At least 10 deaths from snow, ice and record cold in South

By KATE BRUMBACK and JAY REEVES

Jan. 18, 2018

ATLANTA (AP) — Snow, ice and a record-breaking blast of cold closed runways, highways, schools and government offices across the South and sent cars sliding off roads Wednesday in a corner of the country ill-equipped to deal with wintry weather. At least 10 people died, including a baby in a car that plunged off a slippery overpass into a Louisiana canal.

Icicles hung from a statue of jazz musicians in normally balmy New Orleans, and drivers unaccustomed to ice spun their wheels across Atlanta, which was brought to a near-standstill by little more than an inch (2.5 centimeters) of snow. The beach in Biloxi, Mississippi, got a light coating. And the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill canceled classes as the storm unloaded at least 8 inches (20 centimeters) of snow in Durham and Greensboro.

Even the best drivers had trouble: Retired NASCAR champion Dale Earnhardt Jr. tweeted that he had just used his winch to help pull a car out of a ditch when he drove off the road and into a tree in North Carolina.

"NC stay off the roads today/tonight. 5 minutes after helping these folks I center punched a pine tree," he reported. A spokesman said Earnhardt was not hurt and his pickup had only minor damage.

The frigid air that brought snow and ice to the South has ushered in record-breaking low temperatures for New Orleans, Louisiana, as well as other cities in the South. (Jan. 17)

Though skies were sunny and bright in many places, temperatures remained below freezing throughout the day in much of the South.

Thousands of schoolchildren and teachers got the day off. Many cities canceled meetings and court proceedings, and some businesses closed. Slippery runways and the need to de-ice planes forced cancellations and delays in New Orleans; Memphis, Tennessee; and Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina. Electricity usage surged as people struggled to keep warm.

In Alabama, where some places got at least 3 inches (7 centimeters) of snow, dairy farmer Will Gilmer bundled up for the drive to his milking barn before daybreak in rural Lamar County, the thermometer reading 7 degrees (minus 14 Celsius).

"I probably had four layers on and then insulated coveralls and a heavy coat on over that. I made it OK except for my toes," he said.

The mercury dropped to record lows overnight in several places in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi. It was 21 degrees (minus 6 Celsius) before dawn in New Orleans, breaking the city's record of 23 (minus 5 Celsius), set on the same date in 1977.

At least four people died in Louisiana, including a man knocked off an elevated portion of Interstate 10 in New Orleans when a pickup spun out on ice, and an 8-month-old baby in a car that slid into a canal in suburban New Orleans. The baby's mother was in critical condition.

Two others died along an icy stretch of I-75 southeast of Atlanta when a driver lost control and hit them, one of them inside a stopped car and the other standing beside it, authorities said.

A police officer walks from the scene of an overturned Jeep in Richmond, Va.

One person died in a weather-related traffic accident in West Virginia. In the freezing Houston area, a homeless man was found dead behind a trash bin, apparently of exposure, while an 82-year-old woman with dementia succumbed to the cold after walking away from her home. Also, a woman was discovered dead in a snowy park near City Hall in Memphis. The temperature was around 10 degrees (minus 12 Celsius) when she was found.

Snow fell in a wide band that stretched from southeastern Texas all the way to western Massachusetts. And along the Gulf Coast, ice pellets covered the tops of sago palm trees, and stretches of I-10 were closed in Louisiana and across Alabama's Mobile Bay.

Downtown Atlanta — the corporate capital of the South, notorious for its heavy traffic — was eerily quiet.

Susan Luciano, walking in snow-blanketed Peachtree City just south of Atlanta, was delighted: "It is the most romantic setting. It is beautiful. This is God's masterpiece ... a living postcard."

Still, dozens of accidents were reported across the Atlanta metro area, one involving a salt truck.

Southern states and cities don't have the large fleets of snowplows, salting trucks and other snow-removal equipment common in the North.

"Y'all aren't going to make it!" a driver in a pickup truck yelled at two drivers in compact cars that were spinning their wheels on an icy boulevard near SunTrust Park, where the Atlanta Braves play. "You're going to slide back down the hill! Turn around!"

Adrian Benton, a 26-year-old native of snowy Buffalo, New York, tried to help.

"The up-north way of dealing with snow needs to come down here," Burton said of snowplows and salting up North.

Marlow Payat bikes in Memphis.

Yet one weather expert who grew up in brutal Michigan winters and now lives in Atlanta said Southern winters have the North beat.

Ryan Maue, a meteorologist with the private forecaster Weather.US, said Atlanta's mostly untreated roads were fraught with icy peril during his car outing Wednesday to the supermarket.

"My little car was struggling even to move," he said, adding he worried just as much about Southern motorists risking their necks — and those of others in their "non-winterized cars." But he told The Associated Press that Southern comfort is on the way, with the mercury to start rising above freezing by midday Thursday in the region and even into the low 60s (15 Celsius) in spots by the weekend.

Said Maue: "We should feel a widespread warming throughout the South. It will feel wonderful."